Transparency of salaries: towards the end of the taboo?

"How much do you earn? "Long taboo, the subject of salaries is now making its way into open spaces and coffee breaks. And it finds particularly fertile ground in flexible working environments, where hierarchies are flatter and teams often hybrid. Against a backdrop of the quest for fairness, tensions on the job market and new social expectations, pay transparency is becoming an unavoidable issue. Demanded by employees and driven by new forms of work, pay transparency is gradually becoming a requirement. It's a cultural revolution, but one with ambivalent effects... We tell you all about it!

Salary transparency: a lever against inequality

From start-ups to major corporations, some organizations are now publishing their pay scales by job type, and even individual salaries, particularly for management teams and comexes. The aim: greater fairness, greater clarity, greater consistency with a changing corporate culture. But pay transparency, while attractive on paper, is far from being a universal remedy.

For its advocates, transparency is first and foremost a tool for social justice. By making salaries visible, it highlights unjustified pay discrepancies, whether linked to gender, origin or status. And it forces companies to review their practices. But in reality, things are often more nuanced, and confronting pay transparency can be an arduous task.

"In an open, horizontal working environment, it becomes difficult to justify arbitrary discrepancies," explains Sophie, HR Director at a tech company based in a coworking space in Lyon. "Salary transparency goes hand in hand with a culture of feedback and collaboration. "

Flexible spaces, new expectations

This demand for transparency is also driven by the very evolution of workspaces. The development of coworking, telecommuting and shared offices is transforming internal dynamics. Employees, who are often more mobile and autonomous, and less anchored in the logic of a "lifetime" office, expect their employers to communicate clearly, directly and coherently on recognition and remuneration criteria.

In these environments, where boundaries are more blurred, transparency becomes a condition of trust. " When you share the same space, but not the same rules, opacity can quickly create unease", analyzes an organization consultant. Hence the importance of establishing an explicit framework, including for salaries.

The other side of the coin when it comes to salary transparency

But transparency has its grey areas. Poorly prepared, it can generate tensions, expose managerial biases or freeze negotiating margins. Some companies also fear that standardizing salaries will undermine the flexibility needed to attract rare or specific talents.

What's more, constant comparisons between colleagues, with no detailed explanation of differences, can destabilize previously serene teams. " It's not enough to publish figures: they need to be accompanied by a real effort to educate," warns one HR specialist. For Antoine, a manager, "The subject of salary and bonuses is always a delicate one, since it influences team motivation and commitment."

Rather than opposing opacity and total exposure, some companies are adopting a graduated approach to transparency: publication of ranges by job, clearly defined development criteria, reinforced managerial dialogue. This strategy is particularly well suited to flexible structures, where agility also requires a culture of empowerment.

Transparency doesn't replace trust, it builds it. And in shared or hybrid workspaces, this trust is essential for teamwork.

A question of balance?

Is salary transparency a good idea? Of course it is. Provided it is implemented with method, dialogue and education. It's not an end in itself, but an indicator of organizational maturity. And it is part of a broader transformation: that of a more fluid, more horizontal world of work, with more demanding values.

Key figures : 68% of employees believe that salary transparency would strengthen their trust in their employer(GLASSDOOR, 2024) 34% of companies fear that pay smoothing would undermine merit-based employee development, which could also lead to an increase in challenges to performance appraisals.(MICHAEL PAGE, 2025) 8 out of 10 executives consider salary transparency to be positive, but companies are more mixed, with 45% fearing negative repercussions.(ROBERT WALTERS, 2025)

Between a challenge of equality, a lever for cohesion and a tool for cultural transformation, salary transparency is becoming unavoidable, especially in a working world where flexibility has become the norm. All that remains is to anchor it in a clear, fair... and humane framework.